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Throughout Michigan, the disabled, those 60 and older and residents who will be out of town on Election Day can vote by absentee ballot. They can receive one in the mail by notifying their local clerk's office.
In many municipalities, however, clerks don't wait to be contacted. Many auto-matically send applications to residents who are older than 60, while others send ballots only to those who have asked. With communities taking a variety of approaches to their mailings, critics say it is long past time for the state Legislature to act to create uniform regulations.
Sabaugh, however, is ready to step in where communities don't send applications to all residents 60 and older, and she has done so in recent elections. But her efforts are being challenged in court through a Republican-backed lawsuit that questions her legal authority to conduct the mailings. In addition, other clerks have balked at having the county step in and mail applications to people who haven't asked for them.
Clerk defends actions
For Sabaugh, the issue is simple: The applications are the best way to give seniors an equal opportunity to vote. And if she had her way, all voting-age residents would receive absentee ballot applications in the mail. Others see her maneuvering as a means of solidifying political power for the Democratic Party, which dominates Macomb County.
"As a clerk, I always took it as a responsibility to encourage people to vote -- to make sure you had a program for registering them," said Sabaugh, a Democrat running for her fifth consecutive term in 2008. "I think most elected clerks get that; that you need to encourage people."
Clerk Terri Kowal of Shelby Township, a Republican, is not among them. |
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"It's a waste of taxpayer money," she said. "It's insulting and confusing to voters. We get calls from our residents asking why we've sent them applications they haven't asked for."
In Oakland and Wayne counties, Sabaugh's peers do not take the same approach.
"We don't mail out applications automatically if the local clerks don't do it themselves," Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson said. That holds true even in recent elections in which many local clerks who have historically mailed applications to all seniors have stopped.
The reason: a Wayne County Circuit Court ruling three years ago that said state law did not give local clerks the implicit authority to mail applications.
The absence of a uniform interpretation hurts the whole process, Johnson said, since absentee voting boosts overall participation.
Absentee voting makes up a sizable percentage of participation in Macomb County. In the gubernatorial race of 2006, absentee ballots accounted for 43 percent of the overall vote in the primary and 24 percent in the general election.
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During school elections, absentee voting can account for as much as 88 percent of the total vote in some cases.
Suit challenges authority
Sabaugh has received support from two unlikely sources across the political aisle. Earlier this month, U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, entered the fray, saying she did not oppose Sabaugh's efforts.
And Republican consultant Max Fellsman, an original plaintiff in the lawsuit against Sabaugh, has withdrawn his support for the legal action.
"I would rather have the Republican Party spend money in support of our candidates than in suppressing the vote," Fellsman wrote.
Edward Doster, an attorney representing Republicans in the lawsuit against Sabaugh, said the practice of mailing unsolicited applications is illegal.
The state's election code does not give county clerks the authority to do so, Doster said. |
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In August, Circuit Judge David Viviano threw out the lawsuit, even though he agreed the state did not empower Sabaugh to conduct the mailings. Yet he ruled that Sabaugh gained that authority when Macomb County's Board of Commissioners voted in September 2006 to allow her to mail to seniors in communities that were not doing so.
Viviano declined to comment on his ruling, saying the case may come back to him if he is overturned by the Michigan Court of Appeals, where the lawsuit sits. Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land's office administers election law and voter registration. Last week, a spokeswoman said officials were waiting to see what the Court of Appeals does with the issue.
"We'd like to see consistency," said Land's spokeswoman, Kelly Chesney.
"We do not see where in the election law that counties have the authority to do this."
The Court of Appeals has not decided whether to hear the case.
You can reach Jim Lynch
at (586) 468-0520 or jlynch@detnews.com. |
